At the present time there are numerous electromechanical systems for measuring physiological parameters such as temperature, blood pressure, respiration rate, heart rate and any number of other signs of physical condition which should be monitored for proper health care. Because such systems are generally intended to be portable and carried by the operator from patient to patient in a hospital or other health care facility, the systems must necessarily be contained in rather small packages. Also, because time is generally the limiting factor, accuracy is generally sacrificed for speed. When measuring temperature, most systems take several measurements at a relatively early time before the temperature sensor reaches the equilibrium temperature and then attempt to predict the final temperature. Because speed is essential, it is desirable for such temperature predicting systems to utilize only a limited number of readings in order to arrive at a prediction of the final temperature within a reasonable amount of time. When measuring respiration rate, since it has a relatively low rate, only a few exhalations are detected and then that number calculated to produce the final result. When measuring the pulse rate a major problem has long been in taking enough time to take sufficient readings so as to accurately produce the actual pulse rate. It is noted that it is very easy for the pulse rate to vary in a short period of time. For example, such variations are often the result of anxiety of the patient brought on by the pulse measuring operation itself. Although in the past multi-purpose instruments have been proposed for measuring more than one physiological parameter, these instruments have all operated sequentially, i.e., it was necessary for one measurement cycle to be complete before the next measurement could be taken. This, of course, presents the problem discussed above, that is, expending too much time in performing the measurements. Another failure of all previous measuring instruments has been the inability to sense any abnormalities which may occur at the patient/instrument interface. More specifically, if a temperature probe has been moved about in a patient's mouth during a measurement cycle thereby causing clearly erroneous readings, the prior systems were not able to detect these anomalies and the bad readings were used in the calculations. Accordingly, it may be seen that although in the past electronic device and systems have been available for sensing and measuring various physiological parameters of a patient, such devices have all suffered major drawbacks relating to accuracy and speed. These drawbacks are due chiefly to restrictions on the amount of time available to take the measurements and on the integrity of the patient/instrument interfaces.